Post by RobinK on Feb 16, 2007 19:34:33 GMT 12
BALALAI, 1989 - A BATTLESCAPE FROZEN IN TIME
The runway at Balalai runs north-east/south-west for 1,200 metres. It could not be any longer, for it reaches fully from beach to beach across the islet. Its surface is flat, smooth, firm and sound beneath a springy mat of short tropical grasses. At its narrowest point the strip is 60 metres wide. On either side thick bushes rise quickly to tall trees which extend to the lateral shores. The strip is one of many in the Solomon Islands laid down on similar small, offshore coral outcrops, where there are lesser civil engineering challenges than on the abruptly faulted main islands. For Solomon Islanders the Balalai strip serves their remote western Shortland group; but it is also on the border and close by the territory of Bougainville. It is a troubled region.
On Thursday 31 August 1989, whilst on military exercise in the Solomons based at Henderson field on Guadalcanal, I was able to spend about four hours at Balalai with three other RNZAF personnel. We travelled from Henderson in a Piper Aztec, hired for the purpose from the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The flight took two hours each way. The aircraft's local pilot accompanied us throughout the day.
Off the strip in the trees and scrub the air was still, hot and heavy. By definition the forest was less than fifty years old, but its vigorous regrowth had sealed off from sight the marks of havoc that once visited this place. It had been a Japanese air maintenance base, but the war destroyed it, then swept around it and over it, and left it behind largely forgotten. Also largely forgotten is that it was Admiral Yamamoto's destination when his aircraft was intercepted and shot down by American Lightnings on the morning of 18 April 1943.
In 1989 the vegetation still hid countless large bomb craters, untouched since they were made and now half-filled with stagnant water. Near many of them and scattered all around lay the wreckage of war. There were the skeletons of jeeps, trucks, tarmac cranes, refuellers, bomb trolleys, and other once-functional things. Blackened oil and fuel drums were tumbled about, and twisted steel planking was everywhere. Dugouts contained personal webbing and spent cartridge cases. The place in 1989 was as it had been when it was abandoned 45 years earlier.
Then there were the aircraft. Bettys, Zeros and others stood behind low bunds in their revetments. All were badly damaged, but some were erect on their own legs with wheels still shod in rotted tyres. Some had wings and other appendages still attached; some had broken backs, broken wings, broken tails. Some were quite dismembered, or charred heaps barely recognisable. Trees now grew through the wrecks, and epiphytes clung to the metal exterior surfaces. Colonies of spiders lived inside the fuselages, and large black lizards scuttled noisily in the refuge of wing spaces. In retaking her domain Nature had added to the damage originally done, but in every case the aircraft ruins also bore the obvious gashes and scars of a mortal attack by others of their kind from the air.
And that is the point. Though the mood of Balalai under the forest canopy was almost palpable, any sentiment of shrine to the dead seemed faint. At that distance of time what lay there spoke less about the fate of men than about the fate of man's inventions and the violent destruction of his engines of war.
Seventeen years ago it was a place of incongruities. I do not know what has been done to it in those seventeen years, but it probably is still as much a cypher now as it was then. One sensed the misdirected ambition that consumed the passion and wealth of the ingenious people who built the machines now lying there useless; and also the response this had drawn from other peoples who, in order to defeat the conqueror's ambition, had turned their own energy, wealth and ingenuity to blowing up what the interloper had wrought.
In the four hours on the ground we found about six Bettys or large parts of Bettys, and about twice that many Zeros. There was also one example of a larger fighter type that we could not name; and of a twin-engined aircraft with a slim fuselage containing at least two cockpits in tandem.
None of the aircraft we found had instruments in the cockpits; many entire instrument panels had been removed at some stage. Neither was any single aircraft bodily complete. Some were nearly so, though with extensive deformation or impact damage to major parts. In some cases the centre sections had obviously caught fire. All flying and fuselage surfaces were torn or punctured in many places, by shrapnel or blast from bomb bursts, or from strafing. Over time there had been considerable corrosive exfoliation of spars and other main load-bearing structures, some of which had erupted through the skin. Otherwise much of the exposed skin metal not in contact with the ground was in surprisingly good condition. It was possible to walk along a wing without falling into it or breaking it off.
Engines, a few with propellers, still hung on some fuselage or wing mounts; others had fallen onto the ground. Yet others lay in no obvious correlation to any particular fuselage or wing.
It would I suppose be possible to restore a Betty using what we saw there, though it would take several of the carcasses to do so; and cockpit restoration would be beyond reach. It seemed the same would be the case for the Zeros. But setting aside the huge task of recovering the mass of material required from this isolated and difficult site, the direct restoration work necessary would be great. And even when it was done the result could still be no more than a hybrid; a pale facsimile of the truth; a wraith. It could never speak as eloquently nor as honestly of history as that which lies there just as it is, where it is. It seemed to me at the time that to disturb the site greatly would not be a proper thing. But this was seventeen years ago and it is likely that the site has been raided since then.
Solomon Island legislation covering the export of "war relics" seemed to be uncertain at that time, and to be honoured rather more in the breach than in the observance. Fixed to the walls of the terminal building at Henderson Field were prominent notices warning of the consequences of exporting war relics, but the manner of policing this seemed variable. It was difficult to get to the bottom of layered and sometimes vague land ownership issues. There was no doubt of course that individual Solomon Islanders and the Government were well aware that their lands might harbour artefacts of some value. Their quandary seemed to be whether to make a fast dollar by selling outright to the highest bidder, or to try to capture tourist interest and dollars by retaining the historical material in country. The former would produce cash as a one-off venture but lose the asset for ever; the latter would require cash - or kind - to render the relics presentable and accessible before any benefit could accrue.
Of course we were not the only ones to know about Balalai. Others from other parts of the world were interested. Some were in place at the time of our visit, with various and sometimes contradictory schemes involving removal of the wrecks for restoration or restoration in-place as tourist bait. Glimpses of earlier predations, and of the history of Balallai, can be seen at www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/solomons_ballale.html).
As a personal opinion it seemed to me that the great bulk of the wreckage at Balalai should be left in place. What is in the jungle should be inspected and systematically catalogued. Tracks should be cut to enable access. Failing that, if anything were removed from its place of fifty years it should be restored only in the sense of displaying it as it now is, but where people might get to see it more easily than by travelling to this isolated part of the world.
For example, about two-thirds of the way along the length of the strip when facing north-east, and 100 metres or so off to the right in the bush, there was a Betty aircraft. It stood on its wheels. Its back was broken aft of the wing. The starboard wing was missing outboard of the engine; the nacelle itself hung downward at a sheepish angle. The tail section was in passable condition, minus the observation transparencies. The rudder could be moved freely.
Had the starboard wing still been there, it would have overhung a bomb crater about ten metres in diameter. Indeed it was obvious why the starboard wing was no longer there!
The aircraft had been standing on steel planking at the time the bomb exploded under the wingtip (the planking is not "PSP", for on the evidence of Balalai the Japanese did not pierce the plate but only ribbed it for strength). Near the starboard wheel at the lip of the crater the force of the explosion tore up the heavy planks. No doubt the resulting shrapnel accounted for some of the punctures in the remains of the aircraft. The jagged ends of the steel plates now stood clear of the ground, rolled back and upward from the crater lip. Close outboard of the starboard engine the underside of the wing stub was bowed inward and blackened; this was consistent with direct overpressure blast damage from the explosion. Trees and bushes grew through and around the aircraft.
My opinion would be that if this aircraft (or others) were removed elsewhere, it should be displayed as it is. That is, the steel planking, pierced fuselage, broken back, wing stub, drunken engines, and faded markings should all be translated exactly as is. The bomb crater, trees and dirt; the lot should also be reproduced exactly. Obviously the live lizards and spiders would be a challenge, but most else could be done. Thus unembellished, the scene would tell its own story, or would make a statement for the beholder to ponder, in a far more faithful and compelling way than a shiny restoration could ever do. The expression for these wrecks in local Pidgin is “all bugerup”. Whether they are displayed in place or elsewhere more accessible, what I am suggesting is that they should still be shown “all bugerup”.
Balalai is truly a frozen frame of history; a remarkable time capsule. But history is not the only thing it harbours. Anyone put on the ground at Balalai would need to know there is a warning to be heeded, since something nasty lurks in or about those woods. Upon our return two of the four of us became medical curiosities to doctors on Base and in Auckland City. A third was hopitalised in Christchurch for fear of anaphylactic shock. It is unclear whether the vector was a mite or other insect, or something vegetable, although the circumstantial evidence pointed strongly toward the latter. In our case the poison raised a mild rash on the legs within hours. We were wearing flying suits and calf-high boots, so whatever it was had attacked through the clothing or had worked up under it from the boot tops upward. The primary rash was slightly irritating for a few days, and then it seemed to subside. But with a remarkable concurrency, overnight on the fifth night after exposure it flared in each of us to become what the doctors diagnosed as a pronounced secondary allergic reaction, which means an alarming and unsightly spread of large, hot, very red and severely itchy raised patches on the skin. Fortunately it remained mainly on the legs without attacking more sensitive parts. The doctors clucked and fussed and did their best, but the symptomatic treatment they offered was not as effective as might have been hoped by the sufferer. The condition was quite unpleasant, though it subsided in a week or so.
The runway at Balalai runs north-east/south-west for 1,200 metres. It could not be any longer, for it reaches fully from beach to beach across the islet. Its surface is flat, smooth, firm and sound beneath a springy mat of short tropical grasses. At its narrowest point the strip is 60 metres wide. On either side thick bushes rise quickly to tall trees which extend to the lateral shores. The strip is one of many in the Solomon Islands laid down on similar small, offshore coral outcrops, where there are lesser civil engineering challenges than on the abruptly faulted main islands. For Solomon Islanders the Balalai strip serves their remote western Shortland group; but it is also on the border and close by the territory of Bougainville. It is a troubled region.
On Thursday 31 August 1989, whilst on military exercise in the Solomons based at Henderson field on Guadalcanal, I was able to spend about four hours at Balalai with three other RNZAF personnel. We travelled from Henderson in a Piper Aztec, hired for the purpose from the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The flight took two hours each way. The aircraft's local pilot accompanied us throughout the day.
Off the strip in the trees and scrub the air was still, hot and heavy. By definition the forest was less than fifty years old, but its vigorous regrowth had sealed off from sight the marks of havoc that once visited this place. It had been a Japanese air maintenance base, but the war destroyed it, then swept around it and over it, and left it behind largely forgotten. Also largely forgotten is that it was Admiral Yamamoto's destination when his aircraft was intercepted and shot down by American Lightnings on the morning of 18 April 1943.
In 1989 the vegetation still hid countless large bomb craters, untouched since they were made and now half-filled with stagnant water. Near many of them and scattered all around lay the wreckage of war. There were the skeletons of jeeps, trucks, tarmac cranes, refuellers, bomb trolleys, and other once-functional things. Blackened oil and fuel drums were tumbled about, and twisted steel planking was everywhere. Dugouts contained personal webbing and spent cartridge cases. The place in 1989 was as it had been when it was abandoned 45 years earlier.
Then there were the aircraft. Bettys, Zeros and others stood behind low bunds in their revetments. All were badly damaged, but some were erect on their own legs with wheels still shod in rotted tyres. Some had wings and other appendages still attached; some had broken backs, broken wings, broken tails. Some were quite dismembered, or charred heaps barely recognisable. Trees now grew through the wrecks, and epiphytes clung to the metal exterior surfaces. Colonies of spiders lived inside the fuselages, and large black lizards scuttled noisily in the refuge of wing spaces. In retaking her domain Nature had added to the damage originally done, but in every case the aircraft ruins also bore the obvious gashes and scars of a mortal attack by others of their kind from the air.
And that is the point. Though the mood of Balalai under the forest canopy was almost palpable, any sentiment of shrine to the dead seemed faint. At that distance of time what lay there spoke less about the fate of men than about the fate of man's inventions and the violent destruction of his engines of war.
Seventeen years ago it was a place of incongruities. I do not know what has been done to it in those seventeen years, but it probably is still as much a cypher now as it was then. One sensed the misdirected ambition that consumed the passion and wealth of the ingenious people who built the machines now lying there useless; and also the response this had drawn from other peoples who, in order to defeat the conqueror's ambition, had turned their own energy, wealth and ingenuity to blowing up what the interloper had wrought.
In the four hours on the ground we found about six Bettys or large parts of Bettys, and about twice that many Zeros. There was also one example of a larger fighter type that we could not name; and of a twin-engined aircraft with a slim fuselage containing at least two cockpits in tandem.
None of the aircraft we found had instruments in the cockpits; many entire instrument panels had been removed at some stage. Neither was any single aircraft bodily complete. Some were nearly so, though with extensive deformation or impact damage to major parts. In some cases the centre sections had obviously caught fire. All flying and fuselage surfaces were torn or punctured in many places, by shrapnel or blast from bomb bursts, or from strafing. Over time there had been considerable corrosive exfoliation of spars and other main load-bearing structures, some of which had erupted through the skin. Otherwise much of the exposed skin metal not in contact with the ground was in surprisingly good condition. It was possible to walk along a wing without falling into it or breaking it off.
Engines, a few with propellers, still hung on some fuselage or wing mounts; others had fallen onto the ground. Yet others lay in no obvious correlation to any particular fuselage or wing.
It would I suppose be possible to restore a Betty using what we saw there, though it would take several of the carcasses to do so; and cockpit restoration would be beyond reach. It seemed the same would be the case for the Zeros. But setting aside the huge task of recovering the mass of material required from this isolated and difficult site, the direct restoration work necessary would be great. And even when it was done the result could still be no more than a hybrid; a pale facsimile of the truth; a wraith. It could never speak as eloquently nor as honestly of history as that which lies there just as it is, where it is. It seemed to me at the time that to disturb the site greatly would not be a proper thing. But this was seventeen years ago and it is likely that the site has been raided since then.
Solomon Island legislation covering the export of "war relics" seemed to be uncertain at that time, and to be honoured rather more in the breach than in the observance. Fixed to the walls of the terminal building at Henderson Field were prominent notices warning of the consequences of exporting war relics, but the manner of policing this seemed variable. It was difficult to get to the bottom of layered and sometimes vague land ownership issues. There was no doubt of course that individual Solomon Islanders and the Government were well aware that their lands might harbour artefacts of some value. Their quandary seemed to be whether to make a fast dollar by selling outright to the highest bidder, or to try to capture tourist interest and dollars by retaining the historical material in country. The former would produce cash as a one-off venture but lose the asset for ever; the latter would require cash - or kind - to render the relics presentable and accessible before any benefit could accrue.
Of course we were not the only ones to know about Balalai. Others from other parts of the world were interested. Some were in place at the time of our visit, with various and sometimes contradictory schemes involving removal of the wrecks for restoration or restoration in-place as tourist bait. Glimpses of earlier predations, and of the history of Balallai, can be seen at www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/solomons_ballale.html).
As a personal opinion it seemed to me that the great bulk of the wreckage at Balalai should be left in place. What is in the jungle should be inspected and systematically catalogued. Tracks should be cut to enable access. Failing that, if anything were removed from its place of fifty years it should be restored only in the sense of displaying it as it now is, but where people might get to see it more easily than by travelling to this isolated part of the world.
For example, about two-thirds of the way along the length of the strip when facing north-east, and 100 metres or so off to the right in the bush, there was a Betty aircraft. It stood on its wheels. Its back was broken aft of the wing. The starboard wing was missing outboard of the engine; the nacelle itself hung downward at a sheepish angle. The tail section was in passable condition, minus the observation transparencies. The rudder could be moved freely.
Had the starboard wing still been there, it would have overhung a bomb crater about ten metres in diameter. Indeed it was obvious why the starboard wing was no longer there!
The aircraft had been standing on steel planking at the time the bomb exploded under the wingtip (the planking is not "PSP", for on the evidence of Balalai the Japanese did not pierce the plate but only ribbed it for strength). Near the starboard wheel at the lip of the crater the force of the explosion tore up the heavy planks. No doubt the resulting shrapnel accounted for some of the punctures in the remains of the aircraft. The jagged ends of the steel plates now stood clear of the ground, rolled back and upward from the crater lip. Close outboard of the starboard engine the underside of the wing stub was bowed inward and blackened; this was consistent with direct overpressure blast damage from the explosion. Trees and bushes grew through and around the aircraft.
My opinion would be that if this aircraft (or others) were removed elsewhere, it should be displayed as it is. That is, the steel planking, pierced fuselage, broken back, wing stub, drunken engines, and faded markings should all be translated exactly as is. The bomb crater, trees and dirt; the lot should also be reproduced exactly. Obviously the live lizards and spiders would be a challenge, but most else could be done. Thus unembellished, the scene would tell its own story, or would make a statement for the beholder to ponder, in a far more faithful and compelling way than a shiny restoration could ever do. The expression for these wrecks in local Pidgin is “all bugerup”. Whether they are displayed in place or elsewhere more accessible, what I am suggesting is that they should still be shown “all bugerup”.
Balalai is truly a frozen frame of history; a remarkable time capsule. But history is not the only thing it harbours. Anyone put on the ground at Balalai would need to know there is a warning to be heeded, since something nasty lurks in or about those woods. Upon our return two of the four of us became medical curiosities to doctors on Base and in Auckland City. A third was hopitalised in Christchurch for fear of anaphylactic shock. It is unclear whether the vector was a mite or other insect, or something vegetable, although the circumstantial evidence pointed strongly toward the latter. In our case the poison raised a mild rash on the legs within hours. We were wearing flying suits and calf-high boots, so whatever it was had attacked through the clothing or had worked up under it from the boot tops upward. The primary rash was slightly irritating for a few days, and then it seemed to subside. But with a remarkable concurrency, overnight on the fifth night after exposure it flared in each of us to become what the doctors diagnosed as a pronounced secondary allergic reaction, which means an alarming and unsightly spread of large, hot, very red and severely itchy raised patches on the skin. Fortunately it remained mainly on the legs without attacking more sensitive parts. The doctors clucked and fussed and did their best, but the symptomatic treatment they offered was not as effective as might have been hoped by the sufferer. The condition was quite unpleasant, though it subsided in a week or so.
